Fiction And Nonfiction Quotes

• I used to distinguish between my fiction and nonfiction in terms of superiority or inferiority.

  Peter Matthiessen

  Fiction, Inferiority, Used

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• Beyond that, I seem to be compelled to write science fiction, rather than fantasy or mysteries or some other genre more likely to climb onto bestseller lists even though I enjoy reading a wide variety of literature, both fiction and nonfiction.

  Joan D. Vinge

  Reading, Writing, Science

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• Writing is writing, and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and nonfiction. And even there, who can be sure?

  Tanith Lee

  Writing, Scary, Atheism

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• Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.

  Mark Twain

  Truth, Science, Fiction

  Following the Equator ch. 15, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar" (1897) See Byron 33; Chesterton 6

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• The difference between fiction and nonfiction is that fiction must be absolutely believable.

  Mark Twain

  Differences, Fiction, Believable

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• Fiction and nonfiction are not so easily divided. Fiction may not be real, but it's true; it goes beyond the garland of facts to get to emotional and psychological truths.

  Yann Martel

  Real, Emotional, Fiction

  Yann Martel (2010). “Beatrice and Virgil”, p.16, Canongate Books

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• Fiction and non-fiction are only different techniques of story telling. For reasons I do not fully understand, fiction dances out of me. Non-fiction is wrenched out by the aching, broken world I wake up to every morning.

  Arundhati Roy

  Morning, Broken, Technique

  Arundhati Roy (2006). “Ordinary Person's Guide To Empire”, p.13, Penguin Books India

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• To be creative means to connect. It's to abolish the gap between the body, the mind and the soul, between science and art, between fiction and nonfiction.

  Nawal El Saadawi

  Art, Mean, Creative Nonfiction

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• Fiction and nonfiction are not so easily divided. Fiction may not be real, but it's true; it goes beyond the garland of facts to get to emotional and psychological truths. As for nonfiction, for history, it may be real, but its truth is slippery, hard to access, with no fixed meaning bolted to it. If history doesn't become story, it dies to everyone except the historian.

  Yann Martel

  Real, Emotional, Fiction

  Yann Martel (2010). “Beatrice and Virgil”, p.16, Canongate Books

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• There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there's only narrative.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Fiction, Narrative, Nonfiction

  New York Times Book Review, January 27, 1988.

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• There's no division on my bookshelf between fiction and nonfiction. As far as I'm concerned, fiction is about the truth.

  Arundhati Roy

  Division, Fiction, Concerned

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• Ironically, in today's marketplace successful nonfiction has to be unbelievable, while successful fiction must be believable.

  Jerry B. Jenkins

  Successful, Fiction, Today

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• He would write it for the reason he felt that all great literature, fiction and nonfiction, was written: truth comes out, in the end it always comes out. He would write it because he felt he had to.

  Stephen King

  Writing, Shining, Fiction

  Stephen King (2008). “The Shining”, p.282, Anchor

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• In nonfiction, you have that limitation, that constraint, of telling the truth.

  Peter Matthiessen

  Telling The Truth, Constraints, Limitation

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• But with nonfiction, the task is very straightforward: Do the research, tell the story

  Laura Hillenbrand

  Tasks, Stories, Research

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• A typical biography relying upon individuals' notorious memories and the anecdotes they've invented contains a high degree of fiction, yet is considered 'nonfiction.'

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Memories, Typical, Degrees

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• There is always a certain leap of faith that editors have made with their nonfiction writers. If the trust is broken, things can get very embarrassing for the writers and the publisher.

  A. Scott Berg

  Editors, Broken, Leap Of Faith

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• Fiction and nonfiction, for me, involve very different processes.

  Chad Harbach

  Different, Fiction, Process

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• I've seen a lot of the United States, having stayed in so many different cities and towns for work. It's such a strange and fascinating country, and instead of learning about it through a textbook, I would rather discover its history and traditions and institutions through fiction and nonfiction writers.

  Hope Davis

  Country, Cities, United States

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• I enjoy doing the research of nonfiction; that gives me some pleasure, being a detective again.

  Joseph Wambaugh

  Giving, Research, Detectives

  Interview with Ann Bruns, www.bookreporter.com. May 17, 2002.

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• Writers imagine that they cull stories from the world. I'm beginning to believe that vanity makes them think so. That it's actually the other way around. Stories cull writers from the world. Stories reveal themselves to us. The public narrative, the private narrative - they colonize us. They commission us. They insist on being told. Fiction and nonfiction are only different techniques of story telling. For reasons that I don't fully understand, fiction dances out of me, and nonfiction is wrenched out by the aching, broken world I wake up to every morning.

  Arundhati Roy

  Morning, Believe, Thinking

  Arundhati Roy (2003). “War Talk”, p.45, South End Press

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• Ah, well, I have no talent for nonfiction, that's my problem.

  Jonathan Coe

  Talent, Problem, Wells

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• Prose gets divided up into fiction and nonfiction and short fiction and long fiction and autobiographical nonfiction and so on. Poetry can do any of those things except with the added definition of intensified formal pressure.

  Robert Hass

  Long, Pressure, Definitions

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• The funny thing is that in Bosnia there are no words that are equivalent to fiction and nonfiction. From the storytelling point of view, the difference is artificial.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Differences, Views, Funny Things

  "There Is No Real Life". Interview with Brad Fox, www.guernicamag.com. March 15, 2013.

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• I read nonfiction almost exclusively - both for research and also for pleasure. When I read fiction, it's almost always in the thriller genre, and it needs to rivet me in the opening few chapters.

  Dan Brown

  Needs, Fiction, Research

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